CHAPTER 2
Eighteen-year-old Rose Bentley paced and prayed.
For weeks, that was all she’d been able to do, pace the wide-plank floors of this well-appointed cottage and beg God to deliver her from this nightmare.
Every time she prayed, she pictured her brother coming for her. But of course, he was a world away in Colorado.
Please, Lord,she prayed, picturing Will,please save me.
It had to be soon. She was running out of time.
Pausing at the window, she looked out at the lush, manicured lawns surrounding the estate of the despicable Isaac Pew.
The doctor’s carriage was parked in front of the mansion again. She had seen the doctor arrive this morning and carry his little black bag inside.
The doctor looked very similar to Pew himself. Perhaps they were twins. Both men were lean and slightly stooped and favored black suits and flat-brimmed black hats from which flowed ghostly curtains of long, white hair.
If only the doctor were here for Pew and not his wife.
The doctor had been inside for a long time, which frightened Rose.
She set to pacing again. Pacing and praying.
Please don’t let her die, Lord. Not yet. Not until Will comes.
Because she knew Will would come for her. Even though she hadn’t seen him for years, even though he was nearly a thousand miles away, she knew her big brother would come for her.
She just hoped he got here in time.
For the hundredth time, she tried the door. Locked, of course.
Just beyond the door, she knew, would be one of the guards, one of the rough men who escorted her to the privy and brought her food and drink when she requested it.
“Need something?” a gravelly voice outside the door asked, having apparently heard her touch the handle.
It was Sheffield, the scariest of the guards, a hulking man with an iron grip and eyes that burned like brands in the fire. He always hurried when he took her back and forth, always gripped her arm like a beartrap.
“Yes, I need to go home.”
“You are home,” he said.
She shuddered at the thought. She couldn’t live here. Wouldn’t. She would sooner be dead.
She started pacing again.
A few minutes later, a light rapping sounded at the door, chilling her blood.
She stopped pacing and froze there, listening hard, barely breathing.
“Miss Bentley?” Isaac Pew called softly through the door.
Rose said nothing.
“Miss Bentley, I am sorry to have kept you waiting.” She heard the old man’s breath catch with excitement. “But your wait is almost over. My beloved wife has finally passed away.”
CHAPTER 3
The attack came without warning.
